he Economic Benefits of Alaska’s Construction Industry and 2020 Construction Spending Forecast was prepared by McDowell Group for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska/Construction Industry Progress Fund and published in January. This comprehensive look at how the construction industry impacts Alaska considers employment and wage data (direct impacts) as well as multiplier effects (indirect or induced impacts) on the economy.

To gather this data, the McDowell Group team gathered data from multiple sources including the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US Census Bureau. “To measure multiplier effects (secondary economic impacts) associated with construction industry spending with Alaska businesses and the wages paid to Alaska residents, the study team used the IMPLAN (Impact Analysis for PLANning) input-output modeling system to build economic models for Alaska,” the report states. Additional information was requested from, and interviews were conducted with, construction companies to gather spending data for the modeling and to refine modeling assumptions.

For the forecast, ten years of state and federal spending data were gathered, and the team reviewed articles, press releases, and other published materials about current and future projects. “More than 125 private and public organizations were contacted to request information, much of it confidential, about 2019 and 2020 spending,” the report says.

We have highlighted many insights from this in-depth report over the next several pages, though even with a special expanded Alaska Trends, we are not nearly able to cover all the exceptional information published therein. For those interested in learning even more, the report can be found at agcak.org.